Complex Event Processing
Complex Event ProcessingComplexEventProcessing (CEP) is a category of infrastructure software complementary to financial trading systems, market data systems, and BusinessProcessManagement (BPM). The term "CEP", in its usage suggested here, was arguably coined in 2002 by StanfordUniversity professor DavidLuckham? in combination with mainstream industry analysts (Gartner, Forrester), and has been also used by several vendors in the space (APTSoft, NEON Systems, TIBCO, etc.). As of 2005, it has become a more mainstream term and is considered to be an important component of any advanced BusinessActivityMonitoring (BAM) solution.
CEP software analyzes event streams in ways that go beyond simple cause-and-effect triggers common to traditional event processors (hence the word "complex"). Examples of CEP are: aggregating events into broad measurements (such as performance indicators), correlation, performing continuous queries, sliding window analysis (a calculation on the preceeding or following X number of events), causality analysis, etc.
The reference text for CEP is DavidLuckham?'s The Power of Events, ISBN 0201727897 .
See http://www.complexevents.com/
See "Uncover Patterns In Processes" at http://www.informationweek.com/shared/printableArticle.jhtml?articleID=166403420.
[edited the question below; preserved portions of the comment that remain relevant given the definition above. The author can re-revise if I've misstated his position]
[When the original of the following was written, this page did not define the term "ComplexEventProcessing" at all:] Event Processing is a very old technical buzzword (for example, in the world of GUIs, which are based on Event Processing, but in many other areas of technology as well). Because of that, the phrase "Complex Event Processing" is, to most of us, simply a phrase, not a trademarked buzz phrase.
Why should the rest of the world care? Especially when I hate it when normal terminology is usurped by private interests? -- DougMerritt
Innocuous terminology often gets usurped by industry analysts and becomes a label, such a thing is fine and is never really going to change. Look at "web services". Anyway, stuff like CEP traditionally was done with custom software, it's very common in financial services, especially on trading floors. Listening to a market data stream to continuously calculate a trading desk's risk, for example, has been common for 5+ years. CEP software seeks to make this much simpler to do and more cost effective, thus also making the technology applicable outside of the financial arena. -- StuCharlton
Given that you have now defined the phrase, which the original author didn't bother to do, ok, I get it - and the applications you say it's useful for make it even sound potentially interesting, if it really is something innovative. Thanks.
P.S. on the other hand, this doesn't speak to the question of whether "ComplexEventProcessing" is actually trademarkable, and I don't buy the argument that it's always ok for some private firm to usurp terminology; the classic counterexample is Microsoft attempting to make the word "Windows" their private property. Trademarks don't work that way, and the courts found against them in the most important cases, and Microsoft persists anyway, by groundlessly threatening legal action against small companies, and/or occasionally buying them. True, we can't expect Microsoft to stop doing this (although it's idiotic; they should have just picked an easily trademarkable name to start with), but neither can you expect the rest of the world to stop using the term "window(s)" just because Microsoft has taken that position. If anyone gets confused when I refer to the Linux X11 windows on my screen, that's Microsoft's problem, not mine. -- DougMerritt
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